


the moon in your mouth

by rottedflowerpits



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Reminiscing, Stream of Consciousness, and shiro is a good boy, kosmo is a good dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 03:30:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16109873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rottedflowerpits/pseuds/rottedflowerpits
Summary: Keith can't escape the 4am thoughts. Not even in space, in a giant mechanical cat.





	the moon in your mouth

Keith was alone. 

Sans Kosmo, anyway. Kosmo lay at his side, next to the pilot's seat. Every so often a soft, gentle snore could be heard from the wolf's nose, and it was one of the few background noises Keith concentrated on. From snoring, to the subtle creak and scrape of metal working against metal. It was late and everyone was asleep, the atmosphere silent and offering nothing aside from the void outside. 

Keith stared out at it, at the spiral of stars that yawned out across the expansive splash of watercolor nebulae in front of them. It was very much a welcome change of scenery compared to the literal stygian darkness they'd been flying through for the past few days. Nothing to look at nor nothing to see, and it was enough to drive anyone to a certain point of insanity. 

Keith was just grateful for his mother's training regimes, for as much as everyone else seemed to hate them. At the end of the given day, though, it was an excuse to not look at the lonely expanse outside. A reminder of just how far away from home they were. A reminder that, if not for the lions, they could have still been years and years away from Earth. 

But Keith's thoughts didn't linger on that, for once. There was a planet, distant from them and way off their course, but it was there nonetheless. It glimmered a fiery red against the almost-teal background, and the splash of colors they suddenly found themselves in was just as awing as it was jarring. The planet reminded Keith of Mars almost, dusty red sands constantly swept along an endlessly windy landscape. Keith remembered reading about Mars, from Spirit and Opportunity to the first day humanity landed on that desolate landscape. 

Mars was just the first of many little humanity-kissed trysts, and Keith recalled all the explorations from it to Kerberos. 

Just thinking of _that_ name had his tongue going numb. 

Keith tried desperately not to linger on the residual resentments. After all, that was all water under the bridge, millennia away from their current point. It felt like forever ago, an old scar that sometimes still itched. It wasn't a wound that begged to be torn open at every opportunity again and again, and Keith was willing to let that rest once and for all, finally tucked away in the far recesses of his mind. 

Keith was only human, though, and his brain still liked to suddenly run in place, whether he liked it or not. After the years he'd come to have by himself, and with others, he'd learned a certain acceptance to the underlying genetic makeup of his faults. So with a deep sigh, instead of pushing it away like it had never happened, Keith leaned back into his seat and let his mind wander in the direction of inevitable heartbreak. 

Literal years had come and gone since that fateful moment he'd lost Shiro, but no matter how many times he tried to clean and redress the wound, it still wept freely, fresh and new when he let it. Kerberos was a stain, a dagger between the ribs. It was an intrusive thought Keith could no longer pass off as a memory. Too much had happened in the span of sixty seconds to an hour when he'd heard of Shiro's death. The universe had let the impossible happen in such a short span of time that completely and utterly uprooted Keith's life from the very core of what he knew and what he'd gotten used to. 

Keith sucked in a sharp breath, loud enough to wake Kosmo. He was immediately blinking up at Keith with sweet yellow eyes, and he couldn't help the exasperated chuckle that slipped past his lips at the sight. 

“Maybe I should have actually named you Shiro,” he muttered quietly, reaching down to rub at the wolf's ears. Kosmo took it as an acceptable offering, leaning his snout into Keith's palm. His eyes were still wide open, picking Keith apart layer by layer until it felt like Keith's soul was being observed. Something about Kosmo had that effect, and Keith chewed the inside of his lip, eyebrow quirked. 

“What, you wanna know what I'm thinking? Penny for my thoughts?” 

Kosmo blinked once. He'd never given away if he could actually understand Keith. Keith knew he had to, on some level. He just...didn't know how far the connection between them went. Kosmo continued to stare, and Keith continued to try and gauge what was being said in those bright fluorescent eyes. He finally caved underneath their pressure, and Keith averted his gaze back to the space outside. 

Constellations unfamiliar to him hung suspended, eternal yet fleeting, everywhere he looked. Keith felt the pang of homesickness in his heart, the longing for life before Voltron, the Galra, the universe itself. Keith thought back to the days he'd sit on the Garrison's rooftop, alone and isolated, of his own accord. He remembered watching the skies, austere in their beauty, mapped to every visible star, planet, comet, and asteroid available within their immediate reach. 

Keith missed the feeling of pondering who he was and why he didn't belong. It was a moment that somehow filled him with a yearning for those times. Reminiscing for quiet nights when he didn't have the duties of paladin on his shoulders. It was a more inviting memory, faux-warm at the edges of his mind.

Keith felt the tug towards the rabbit hole, and Kosmo whined softly. Keith blinked the misty aura from his eyes and laughed, his voice thick as he spoke. "Sorry," he laughed. He looked back down at Kosmo and patted his thigh once. Kosmo was, by all accounts, a huge animal. Keith liked it when they were able to cuddle though, something he'd never tell another soul. 

He wrapped his arms gently around Kosmo's neck, burying his face in the fluff once the wolf had propped his upper half in Keith's lap. Kosmo smelled like dust with a hint of desert air after a sky-shattering storm, and Keith let himself wallow in the nostalgia of everything they'd left behind. 

It wasn't something that lasted long. 

Keith peered through Kosmo's fur, back out at the planet that had caught his eye. Every memory after the orphanage, after the delinquent center, had a silver lining: Shiro. Keith's thoughts settled on the image of Shiro resting peacefully in his bunk, in the too-tiny room that he and Keith sometimes shared. Shiro had called it early that night, and Keith didn't blame him. He was still recovering, after all, after having been brought back from a cosmic grave. 

Black rumbled quietly at the far edge of his mind at the thought. 

Keith ignored it. He kept running his gloved fingers through Kosmo's fur, slowly and methodically, training his thoughts onto the single point that was Shiro. Despite everything, all the events in the universe that had come to a head, sent them over their boiling points, continued to take and take with barely any give...

Despite it all, they were still together. Keith felt his chest swell at the tide he felt when he thought of Shiro. Shiro was, originally, never supposed to take up as much space in Keith's life as he did. Shiro had been his own person with his own life, a mentor and a guiding light, someone to come back to and depend on when the days had grown rough and abrasive. 

Shiro, though, for all intents and purposes...just hadn't been Keith's, back then. It had been a tough pill to swallow, a hard lesson to learn. Sixteen was hard enough on its own; being sixteen and in love, only to slowly come to terms that his love, the one he wanted, was unrequited, was suicide by unwilling intentions seared into his bones. But, like all things in Keith's life, the feelings were fleeting, manageable. 

Until they weren't. 

Shiro had loved to talk about falling stars. How beautiful they were, brighter than any light in the sky. Rare was the moment when a celestial object hit the earth in actuality, but when it did and he could, Shiro was there. The fire of fascination in his eyes, his stature unbothered by the sonic boom— it was moments like those when Shiro really seemed to shine. 

And then he did shine. 

Shiro hit the ground after his own sonic boom, full of new stardust that glittered through his battered veins. He'd been composed of a new metal, made indestructible. But even heroes had their ends, and Keith's heart felt fit to burst as he remembered each almost, each nearly, and each _surely_ of what seemed to have been a scripted finale. 

Fate was funny like that, though. Shiro's soul was Greek fire and Keith was the moth continuously attracted to the flames. He'd flown so close, had burned himself so many times. What he thought he'd been managing he really hadn't, in the end, and it had been something that became all the more obvious to him as the recent months between them passed. 

Shiro had been the cliché big bang to his inner universe. Keith's life hadn't started until Shiro shocked his solar plexus and taught him the meaning of the stars, the earth, the meaning to a life worth more than just existing. Keith had fallen for Shiro like the tides tied themselves to the moon, an abject satellite that had no other purpose other than to reflect the greatness of another. Keith could only hope to mirror Shiro's brilliance, the stunning saturation of his existence. 

Keith breathed deep and hard, his hands numb underneath the layers of armor covering him. Kosmo had propped himself against Keith's shoulder, a heavy and comforting weight as they both watched the universe outside. 

Keith's little existential crisis passed just as quickly as it had come. He was breathing deep again, eyes closed. Just when he was going to open them and check their trajectories, make sure they were still on the right path and overall course, another voice perked up over the din of the mechanical ambiance. 

“Trouble sleeping?” 

Shiro's hand suddenly landed on Keith's shoulder and he jumped, puffing out a soft laugh. Kosmo slid from Keith's lap, displeased, eying the two with moderate disdain. 

“I guess you could say that,” Keith said, his own hand falling on top of Shiro's. It was warm, alive. He brought his own hand back to his side and nuzzled Shiro's knuckles with his cheek instead, sighing quietly. “It's been a long few days.” 

“That, it has,” Shiro murmured, turning his hand to brush his thumb over Keith's cheekbone. It was a subtle and comforting touch, and Keith drank it up with his entire body leaning towards Shiro's presence. 

“Wanna talk about it?” 

“Not really.” 

Shiro hummed. “Not much to say, o stoic hero?” 

“Not much to say at all.” Keith waved a hand flippantly. He couldn't help a smirk, and he turned his eyes to look up at Shiro. The wash of purple from Black melted with the red outside, turning his hair a silvery blue. It was like moonlight shining through his open window at the garrison, the only source of light in his lonely room. He'd used to sit in the pool of the beam, awash in its gentle glow, eyes cast heavensward. 

Keith felt that pang of longing, of a strange homesickness for things that had long since passed. He felt the feeling splinter like cheap wood, sending his thoughts into an exhausting array of difficult emotions he didn't have the energy for right then. How it was possible to feel the pull and yet the violent push against the same thing simultaneously he didn't know, but he forgot it usually left the spine of his open book broken and spread out for Shiro to see. 

Shiro sat on his lap and squeezed the air from Keith's lungs, his much heavier weight replacing where Kosmo had left off. 

“Sure there isn't something bothering you?” Shiro asked, his voice husky and tired. It was a soothing tone, a gentle ghosting of what Shiro usually was. Shiro reserved these quiet states for Keith and Keith alone, and he indulged in the moment with another sigh that pushed at his muscles and nearly burst his lungs. 

“I don't know,” he started, slowly, carefully. “But I...I don't know. I get the feeling that once everything is all said and done, I'm...I'm not going to want to stay on Earth. I don't want to go home.” 

Shiro didn't say anything. He stroked the back of Keith's head instead, eyes closed. His long lashes fanned out across his cheeks, and Keith found his eyes on Shiro instead of the spectacular array outside. After all, his entire universe was in his arms. 

“Home was never quite right for me.” Keith felt guilty admitting to it. Slimy, even, for confessing his secret sin to Shiro. He didn't really want Shiro to know his only reasoning for ever staying, for ever doing anything, was Shiro, but...everything was out on the table, recently, and he figured he might as well just roll the dice some more. 

“I don't think anyone's gonna think you're obligated to stay,” Shiro murmured. 

The words were enough to take Keith by mild surprise. “I mean,” he started, “I'm gonna have to. Even if it's not...even if I don't necessarily want to stay, I'm just...I'm going to have to.” He bit his lip, chewing the inside of it. 

Shiro cracked open an eye, eyebrow quirked to his hairline. “And why are you going to have to?” 

Keith faltered. “Because it's...” 

He shook his head. Shiro and he...they'd been a thing, for a while now. A small thing, that had gradually grown into something bigger over time. A cold front clashing with the warm and creating something wild and dangerous between the two. Yet it found equilibrium in the quiet moments, a steady magnetic polar system that kept them intertwined. And maybe that was it, really. A secret answer to the culmination of mixed emotions bubbling like food poisoning in Keith's stomach. 

“Because it's where you'll be,” Keith muttered, looking at his knees. “I want to be where you are, you know. Even if it doesn't seem like it, I...I love you. And home's always been with you.” 

Keith watched the smile slowly spread over Shiro's mouth. It was a sweet and soft expression, and Shiro pressed it to Keith's lips with the same tenderness reflected in his beautifully clear eyes. 

“The universe isn't going to need to be saved forever, you know,” he said, his words quiet. Keith captured them between slow and lazy kisses, eyelids blocking out everything around them as Keith settled into the motions. 

“After everything's all said and done, we won't have to stay. Because it's like you said...” Shiro ran his fingers gently through Keith's hair, twirling the ends around the tips. He kissed at the corner of Keith's mouth, back to the center, capturing the air from his very lungs and rendering him speechless. 

“Home is where you are, Keith. And if home happens to be out in the stars while you find yourself, you know I'll always be with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> oh the joys of writing in sleep deprived, hysteria hazes. hope y'all enjoyed it though. i know i'm proud of it. 
> 
> if you're interested, you can find me at [my tumblr!](https://rottedflowerpits.tumblr.com/)


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